Thread by @twoodiac

The legal case against Trump for what he did (and didn’t do) on Jan 6 took a significant, though not unpredictable, turn today with the release of the following excerpt from Jonathan Karl’s soon to be released book (h/t Axios): 1/12

Here, Trump is clearly excusing and condoning the violence on Jan 6 that he incited on the grounds that it was motivated by righteous and justified political anger. 2/12

Political anger, whether righteous and justified or not, does not provide a legal excuse for *any* violence--like, for example, the insurrectionary violence that occurred on Jan 6. 3/12

At a bare minimum, what Trump did on Jan 6 was incitement to *obstruction of justice,* a federal criminal offence that carries a potential five year prison sentence. 4/12

I have always believed that the DOJ is building a case against Trump for obstruction of justice. OOJ was, in fact, an open and shut legal case from the get-go, as I Tweeted shortly after Jan 6. 5/12

*Insurrectionary* violence was also involved, but that is a harder case to prove, and that probably accounts for the very long delay in DOJ indictments of the insurrection’s leaders (including Trump). 6/12

Trump’s defense of the “Hang Pence” chants, and by implication the violence on Jan 6, will make it even harder for his attorneys to defend Trump in the court trial over Jan 6 that is undoubtedly coming. 7/12

Trump will be indicted for incitement to violence, and here we have him, ten months later, defending that violence on (political) grounds that will provide no legal defense for him--on First Amendment or any other grounds: indeed, it will make his lawyers’ task even harder. 8/12

This is so obvious that one has to wonder what Trump’s motives are here. Is Trump sending a signal to federal prosecutors to cease and desist, on the grounds that the country is in a place now in which right-wing political violence is inevitable and justified? 9/12

That is a view that much of his base has already endorsed, as reported most recently in an article in today’s NYT: 10/12 tinyurl.com/yzfqbx9r

Trump and his cult have been edging closer to this position for some time now. This poses a great danger to the country, but I believe it is an even bigger-even an existential threat--to the GOP, since all the evidence indicates that this is and will remain a fringe view. 11/12

If I were a Republican (which admittedly I am not) I would be hoping and praying that Trump, and things generally, do not go there. It would be damaging to the country for sure, but almost certainly catastrophic for the GOP.

But Trump and his cult are capable of anything. 12/12

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